Pregnancy at week 9, you are entering the third month of pregnancy at this point. But so much has changed already! At this stage of pregnancy, the placenta is taking shapes.
The placenta is producing all the progesterone needed for the pregnancy. Until now, the corpus luteum in your ovary was taking care of this function. Once it’s fully formed, the placenta will deliver vital nutrients to the embryo.
The embryo is about 0.9 inches (2.3 centimeters)long and weighs about 0.5 ounces (15 grams ). They are as big as a green olive.
As a completely normal part of development over the past two weeks, the embryo’s intestines have grown so quickly that they haven’t been able to fit into the abdomen and push out into the umbilical cord instead. At this point, the embryo has grown large enough that the intestines are able to pop back in. The embryo’s heart has finished dividing into four chambers.
The embryo is developing more defined facial features, including a nose. Inside the mouth, the teeth and taste buds are also beginning to take shape. The eyelids are becoming more prominent, and the eyes are able to move around in their sockets. Ears are also more distinct and moving into place, although the embryo can’t hear yet.
The embryo’s skeleton has formed, but it’s mostly cartilage at this point. It will become stronger and cartilage at this point. It will become stronger and harder as calcium deposits form it into bone. At this point, the embryo is using 250-300 milligrams of calcium per day.
By now, muscles are starting to grow, and the joints of their hands and legs can flex, allowing the arms and legs to move around. The tail has disappeared. The embryo’s fingers are longer now, and they’re wider at the end. This is where fingerprints will form later on. The finger is more developed than the toes.
If you have an ultrasound, you might be surprised to see that the embryo is moving around. You probably won’t be able to feel these movements until later on in your pregnancy. During their first pregnancy, most people start feeling the baby’s movements around weeks 18, 19, or 20. With additional pregnancies, some people feel the baby moves sooner.
The embryo’s reproductive organs will start to develop this week. Genetically, the embryo’s sex is already determined, but the embryo isn’t physically developed enough yet for an ultrasound to be able to tell.
The testes and ovaries are forming and moving to the places where they will grow. The ovaries are filled with several million eggs –all of the eggs a female embryo will have for life.
By the time they start their period, most females have about 300,000-500,000 eggs and lose about 1,000 eggs a month(even though usually only one is released at a time during ovulation). This is because of a completely normal process where eggs cells are reabsorbed by the body. Over a lifetime, about 400 eggs in total are released through ovulation on average.